Andy Stanley – Talk 2 – Catalyst One Day

“Don’t be that couch”

• Their goal was to create a church that unchurched people love to attend.
• Then creating churches that…
• Then creating churches that create churches that unchurched…
• Programming was always intended to answer a question…to meet a specific need.
  • How do we create community?
  • How do we get people into groups?
  • How do we get parents to take responsibility for the spiritual dev of their kids’ life?

1.       Whereas programming begins as an answer to a question, over time it becomes part of organizational culture.

• As culture changes many of the questions remains the same, but the answers don’t.
• The tendency is to institutionalize our answers.
• If we instit. An answer, the day will come when it is no longer an answer.

Just like the couch your g-parents had and they moved it with them everywhere they went.  The couch began to take on emotion and memories.

2.       We must continue to be more committed to our mission than to our programming or our model.

• It’s okay to like your model but don’t fall in love with it.
• Over time, sustaining the model can become the mission.
• Over time, the model that we fall in love with can work against mission.

3.       Points of discussion (at their staff meeting when he presented this)

• What have fallen in love with that’s really not as effective as it used to be? What are we emotionally attached to?
• Where are we manufacturing energy?
  • He tells his CPs that he wants them to be proud of everything they do.  If there is a cringe factor, you need to have a meeting.
  • If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he or she do?  Why shouldn’t we walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves? -Andy Grove

• What are our organizational assumptions?

i.      Leaders must bring the underlying assumptions that drive company strategy into line with changes in the external environment.

ii.      We have wrong assumptions that don’t line up with what is happening in the world.

-They sat down and asked each other what they assumed about every aspect of ministry: the city, singles, students, etc.

iii.  The assumptions the team has held the longest or the most deeply are the likeliest to be its undoing. Some beliefs have come to appear so obvious that they are off limits for debate.

1.       What do we assume about people and how to reach them?

a.       Put people in rows and talk to them

b.      Christians naturally love to stand and sing

2.       What do we assume programmatically?

3.       Which assumption is false?

a.       Inspiration and information results in transformation

b.      Moments create movements

4.       Which are true, but not fully leveraged?

a.       People don’t stick to a production. They stick to a relationship. How do we create sticking points in all we do?

To reach people we aren’t reaching we have to do things we are not doing. To reach people nobody’s reaching we have to do things nobody is doing. (Quoting Groeschel.)

 

Andy Stanely at Catalyst One Day

Momentum:  Forward motion fueled by a series of wins.

In the church world momentum will be suppressed because it is threatening.

If you have it, and you don’t know why you do, you are one stupid decision away from killing it.  You have to know what your driving force is.

In the church world the normal answer for why you have momentum  is God.  That may be true but it is not helpful.  He has to be blessing something.  When you see God blessing you you need to figure out what god is blessing.

If you lack momentum you need to understand why.

What if there is a formula for momentum?

1.        Three components of sustained momentum:

-New, improved, improving

• New triggers momentum.
• Even if it is bad, new always triggers mo.
• The momentum can be positive or negative.
• Tip. Negative circumstances are the fertile soil for a burst of positive momentum.
• Organizational mo is often triggered by:
• New leadership
• New direction
• New product
• When evaluating ask do we need one of the previous or a combo?
• Mo is never triggered by tweaking something old. It is triggered by intro something new.
• Minor improvements won’t cause mo
• New doesn’t guarantee sustained mo, but it is an essential trigger.

2.       The new must be a noticeable improvement over the old.

• Must be new AND improved
• Ask: Is this a significant improvement over the old?
• If you are in an eviron where you can’t make changes to create mo you are doing too many things.
• Warning: even sig improvement has a shelf life.

3.       Improving

• Mo is sustained through continuous improvement
• Just like products that want you to stick with their brand
• Continuous improvement requires systematic evaluation.
• Must be built into the rhythm of the org
• Take something that is working and make it better.
• CM requires unfiltered evaluation.
• Nobody and nothing is off limits.

4.       Applying new and improved to the world of ministry

• New personnel
• New programming
• New season
• New series
• New look
• New venues

5.       Improving

• Look for ways to upgrade your presentations.

6.       Momentum stoppers

• Disengaged Leaders
• Overactive managers
• Have to have a working relationship with managers so you can create margin with momentum. Don’t allow managers to manage away your momentum.
• You need both.
• Complacency – rarely get mo the same way you first created it.
• Complexity – slows mo down, when new not complex, but age adds
• You have to tear the scabs and marrow from bone to get rid of complexity.
• The process is painful.
• Complexity works against mo.
• A breach of trust.

 

Craig Groeschel at Catalyst One Day

Here’s my notes from Craig’s first talk.  Challenging stuff.  I’ll write some of my thoughts that this has spurred in me later.

Busting barriers with mindset changes

• No matter what the ministry, they will want to settle in.
• The longer a ministry is stalled, the bigger catalyst to create momentum.

Romans 12:2

1. Think differently about your church culture.

• Problem: “Our people won’t __________.”  You fill in the blank to see where we need to change the culture.
• New mindset:  We haven’t led them to ________.
• Symbolic leadership – have to model it first; lead them to it

2.  Think differently about programming.

• Normal mindset: do more to reach more
• New mindset: We can reach more by doing less.

3.  Think differently about the mission.

• Are you about your mission?  Or are you about guarding people’s feelings?
• Old: We can’t hurt people’s feelings.
• New: We can’t allow someone to hold back the mission of the church.
• Hire for tomorrow’s need.
• We are often surrounded by people who can’t go to the next level.
• You have to love the mission enough to make the painful people choices.

4.  Think differently about people leaving the church.

• Old: We can’t let anyone leave.
• New: We can grow when people leave.

5.  Think differently about limitations.

• old: We can’t because we don’t ________ (people, funds, etc,)  Sometimes the greatest limitations is our own perceptions.
• God often guides by what he doesn’t provide.
• new: See opportunities where others see limitations.

Assignments:
1. Find someone 1 or 2 steps ahead of you and learn how they think. Most want to learn what they do without understanding the why.
2. Identify one wrong mindset and ask God to renew your mind with truth.
3. Identify one painful decision you’ve been avoiding and commit to make the decision no matte what the short term pain.

The greatest thing he did recently was intentional about bringing his passion and heart for Jesus to his church.